Trinkets
by MsLanna
Summary: Short pieces with Walon Vau, telling my version of why he robbed his father's deposit and what it is that is so important to him so suddenly. Ties into Whispers of Wire.
1. Trinkets

Trinkets

_The irony is that I said I would get it back and if it was the last thing I did,_ he thought, _and now it might really be the last thing I do._ He put his hand over the small box and exhaled. There was nothing but ice around him. The only reason his breath didn't show in the air was the breathing system of the helmet. So far the armour had done a good job keeping him warm, but would not last forever.

He didn't know how long his armour would hold up against the cold. It was waterproof, but the environmental seals could do only so much. And nobody would come to save him. At least Delta had banged out as ordered. It was a relief to know them safe. Or as safe as they would get in this war. But he trained them. If anybody was able to survive this war it was them.

_I raised you to survive. Don't humiliate me by going soft._It echoed in his head. Not the best last words to tell them. But a notch above 'I'll shoot you on sight'. He had to trust that they knew how to take it. For a moment Walon Vau considered calculating the length of the rest of his life. Then he decided against it. What was the use anyway. It would not change a thing. The last bit on the comlink might have been a plan to get a rescue party. But who could Delta go to? What would Zey say if he found him like this, laden with the contents of uncounted deposit boxes? Still, it had been a good plan. And it had nothing to do, nothing at all, with the report he had received lately. A report from a detective he had never thought to hear from again.

_You are a difficult man to find, Mr. Vau, but information goes where information must. _

It had been such a long time ago, that the only reason he did remember Axton was the musing on whether to track the man down and kill him. Or at least get back the thirty thousand credits he had spent on him. In the end it had not seemed worth it. He had delivered a report on Sheena and just because he had gotten no further than he had already been - it had seemed to much of a pain.

.

.

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_"It's okay, Walon." She had been a beauty. To him, she had always been the epitome of beauty. The dark eyes, though overcast with sadness any day of the week. But she had stood tall and never flinched, not even once. _

_Her hands caught his as he tried to apply bacta to her split lip. "Thank you."_

_They boy in the memory dropped the hands to his sides like a fool and watched as Sheena applied the bacta carefully. She had more practice in it than he did. Six years, to be precise. She tried to smile at him. "Don't look at me like that. It's not the end of the world."_

_"But you will leave." Walon hated the pleading sound of his voice. But there was nothing he could do. Not then, not now. "How can he make you leave?"_

_Her shoulders sagged. "It's still a few weeks," she replied. "He might just changes his mind again. You know dad."_

_He did. But this time he didn't think the old bastard would change his mind. It was the one thing Walon wanted and as such it was inevitable that it wouldn't happen. He lowered his head and shook it. "You know he won't."_

_They had shared the silence._

_._

_._

_.  
><em>

The Convent of the Hallowed Heart had been easy to find. The real problem had been getting information from the inside. The nuns had been closed off from the galaxy. Nothing was to touch them lest they should lose their purity and sacred value. Once the walls of the cloister had swallowed Sheen all contact had stopped. All the promises of letters, comm calls and holo messages brought to naught.

He had realised the moment the first of his letters returned unopened. _Receiver unknown, return to sender._ It had not stopped him from writing. Six long years, right until he left home and went to search for her in person. He remembered standing in front of the towering, smooth walls. He remembered spending weeks on gaining information. But there was no trace of Sheena. Nobody knew her, nobody remembered her face.

Axton had lost her trail there, too. He had speculated on her whereabouts, but with nothing to base it on but second-hand hearsay. Whatever happened behind those walls, stayed behind them. Almost like Kamino. But the things that had gone on there were in no way comparable. Vau closed his eyes, but the images stayed with him anyway.

He had done the right thing on Kamino. The stats of his squads proved that. The only commandos that were still intact were his. The units of everybody else had lost members and been torn apart. His father had not taught him a lot that was useful, but he knew how to create survivors.

Delta _did_ bang out and they _did_ leave him behind. They acted like survivors and that was why they would live. He didn't add the thought that it was only to die another, fast approaching day. _Shab'la droten_.

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.

.

_"It is just a Convent," she said, as if that made things better. _

_He would lose her and the one ally he had in this house. The stronghold that might calm his father if only a little. The only protection he knew and the only friend he trusted. "Don't go, Sheena."_

_She smiled. "What can I do?"_

_"Run away. I will help you." His eyes lit up. "I'll come with you."_

_They sat under a starlit sky, hidden away from prying eyes on one of the many balconies of the mansion. She pulled up her legs and put her arms around them. The moonlight made her pale face shine almost white. "Don't you think he will find us?" She stared into the distance. "He would find us anywhere."_

_He knew Sheena was right. He just didn't want to accept it. In his mind he was making frenzied plans of flight._

_"Mum was mad at him at first, you know," she suddenly said. "She didn't want me to go." Putting her head onto her knees the girl mumbled on. "She was already planning my wedding. Did you know?"_

_He had not. He couldn't image her as a wife. She was only sixteen! _

_He couldn't say a word._

_"Here," she held out her hand suddenly._

_Surprised Walon opened his and she dropped a small item into his palm._

_"My engagement ring. Won't need that anymore, will I?" Her voice was thin and brittle. _

_The boy gazed at the thin silver band in his hand. A two white stones shone in it like ghosts of diamonds, set into it right opposite each other. The light seemed to fall through them as if they had no material existence. It was beautiful, it would have looked perfect on her hand. Even if he could not imagine any man at her side. "Sheena-"_

_"It's okay," she whispered. "I sneaked into mum's room and took it. I wanted to have it. But I can't take it with me." A sigh escaped her. "I don't want to go, Walon." She sounded desperate._

_That moment, he would have given anything - anything - for the ability to protect her. But he could do nothing. He didn't even manage to put his arm around her shoulders. _

_._

_._

_.  
><em>

It had been a cold night, and he could feel the cold even now. Inside the black armour Vau shivered because the temperature was falling inevitably. From all the ways he had thought he might die, this was not one. But it was not as painful as it could have been. Only that it was also more painful in a way that was nothing physical.

Of course Sheena had left only a few days after that stolen conversation. The boy he remembered had stood on the stairs before the house, numb with disbelief and pain. An embarrassing display of weakness and lacking self-control. It was the one time he agreed with his father, though his means to remedy that had been the same as usual. In the end they had worked. Vau couldn't suppress a grim smile. Even without his sister's hand manoeuvring him behind her, he had stood and lived. Right up to the day his father had gone one step to far.

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.

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_"Who do you think you are?" His father frayed, shaking the ring in his closed fist. "Stealing from your own mother and not having the guts to stand up for it!"_

_He didn't lower his head. It would have been the wiser move implying submission. But Walon didn't feel like submitting. Sheena had given it to him. It was his for the safekeeping. There was no way to involve her in this though. He was on his own, as he had been since the day she left. He only hoped that the convent was really better than this._

_"Do you have nothing to say?" The count demanded._

_Walon kept silent. _

_There was no way he would betray Sheena's hand in this._

_._

_._

_.  
><em>

The count had raged and ranted. He had devilled and disciplined his son and eventually even denied him the way into the Imperial Navy. Not good enough. And he had to know, being an Admiral himself. It had taken several weeks for Vau to realise that his father would never revise that spur-of-the-moment judgement. It had taken less time to find out that the ring had indeed vanished from his mother's jewel box.

No, he had not taken the ring from there, but had it been back, he would not have hesitated to recover it. He had also no joined the Imperial Navy, his father had made it impossible for his only son to do so. But still, here he was, a better soldier than his father, without the personal grudges and agendas. And as a better soldier he had trained even better soldiers.

There was the fleeting thought that using them for this had not been right. Yes, it had been for them - too. But it had also been very much for himself. Selfish. The real shame, Vau mused, was that the wealth was buried down here with him, useless to them now. At least, since Delta would more likely than not do the stupid thing and send some rescue party - _shab'la di'kute,_ all of them - they would get it then.

Diamonds didn't freeze. Deeds didn't die of the cold. And Skirata - bless his annoyingly soft heart for a change - would know how to use it well. Of course, they'd also sell the ring. After it had been so carefully retrieved from banishment that was meant to last forever. After getting disowned he had played with the idea of raiding Mygeeto a few times. It never had seemed worth the trouble. It had never seemed that important. The ring was safe and neither his mother and surely not his father would touch it. It was quite possible they had forgotten about it by now.

He let his mind drift. Even if his former parents had forgotten, he had not, would not. And surely not now. Information went where information must. Who would have thought that Axton was still on the case? Bits of the report jumbled through his thoughts, disjointed as the cold started to get the better of him.

.

_... left the convent approximately twenty-eight years ago ... with a male of unknown ... persecuted by the remaining ... fleeing ... nowhere safe ... pregnant ... on the run ... any means necessary ... mercenaries ... from hiding place to hiding place ... daughter ... found and -_

Vau closed his eyes. This was the part he had to reread several times, back to being a boy of foolish hopes. Of course it had stayed just the same each and every time. She had been found eventually. There were bounty hunters and other mercenaries in abundance who would jump on the easy job of a woman on the run.

That she had made it for a while was enough. That he knew made it worth it. He had promised to get the ring back for her and he had. The coincidence seemed almost to weird to be believable. But here he was, and here the ring was in his possession. _As I have promised._

There was no way he could give it to her anymore, but if the rumours Axton had dug up were true - Vau stopped that train of thought right there. It was too painful on the verge of death. But he was almost numb all over. How was he even supposed to feel pain? His hand reached for the small box, but found he couldn't move. That bad already. In which case it would not really hurt to think it. Hope was beyond reach. The Vau line might be extinct with his last breath here. Or it might not.

The thought was surprisingly warm and comfortable as it slid with him into oblivion.


	2. Ghosts

Ghosts

It was coincidence, plain and simple. Walon Vau was certainly not in any way drawn to the forming community. Was not there because he got along well with Etain. Or because Mird made whimpering noises when he had to let the pregnant Jedi out of sight. He could lend a hand motivating the aiwha bait, though the Nulls were doing good work in that respect. They were in and out of the building site called Kyrimorut on their travels.

It was a convenient place to stop. And that was the main reason he returned. And that was the main reason he returned in between his tasks. One of those had been loitering at the site of an unmarked grave and being incapable of returning an item that had come into his possession again. Vau was sure the deceased would understand. Among the more futile pursuits was a great amount of sifting data. He was getting nowhere with that.

Sometimes he considered asking one, or maybe all, of the Nulls to help out a little. Not too much, after all it was not that important, was it? Just an idea, just a hunch and a _shabla_ load of data. Kom'rk was in at the moment. One of the less talkative of Skirata's sons. Vau skirted around the main room, mulling over another dead end. There were few people as adept in hiding their traces as Mandalorians. And that was the one thing his research had yielded. _Kyr'tsad._

It was the laughter that had caught him unawares. Like silver icicles the past shot through time and space, slamming into him and almost bringing him to a sudden stop. Walon knew that laughter. It had been a long time since last he heard it. And even back then, it must have been over half a century by now, the sound had been rare. A bright sparkle in a dark world and all too easily quenched. Walon remembered how making Sheena laugh had been one of the quests in a childhood he did not think about. Often.

It turned out to be nothing but a comm call. Kom'rk sat at the table in the main room, looking at a holo transmission. Half a girl hovered over the table; thin, with long dark hair and dark eyes. She laughed again. The walls of his father's house stood around Walon suddenly, and that laughter crept up from the past.

Kom'rk turned around, a movement that brought Vau back to the present. Somehow they always knew when you were watching. He acknowledged the Null with a curt nod not not sure if he took his eyes from the image over the table. From what he knew about the going-ons in the clan he realised that she must be Kom'rk's girl. The kid Kal once saved and who conveniently turned into his personal bioengineer.

Seeing her partner distracted the comm girl asked something he couldn't understand and Kom'rk explained. Her face lit up, she turned her head in the direction Kom'rk had indicated and smiled. Vau knew that smile, as if he had seen it yesterday. She waved and looked nothing like the starved waif he remembered Kal saving. She looked happy and like an exact copy of the sister he remembered.

Vau left Kom'rk to the conversation, moving on as if nothing had happened. There had not, for all anybody knew. And just a little time ago he would have shaken it off as inanity, softness, indulgence. The dead don't return for an encore. And if Axton had been certain in one point, it had been Sheena's demise. Fourteen years. She was already dead for fourteen years. And there was no place marked as her grave, nowhere to go, nothing to remember. Vau knew. He had been there.

It had been in that unmarked place that he had made retrieving her ring a solid plan instead of a mere idea. One last thing he could do for a sister he could not save. It did not have to make sense. But now he could not think of returning the ring she had once given him. But then he maybe didn't have to. He might be able to hand it on, as it should have been.

He stopped that train of thought. It was no good, not now, not under these circumstances. Not unless he had certainty. And though the implication were strong, he was not willing to risk being wrong. Not in this. There were still some gaps to be filled. After all it had been thirteen years after Sheen had fled from the coven. Thirteen years unaccounted for and then fourteen. It added up in numbers alright. But that was not enough by far.

Kyr'tsad. That was another indicator. The urge to spit almost overcame him. If they had not incurred Vau's animosity already by being bad for business, he would have grown one now. As things stood, he just had to build upon the resentment he already harboured. And if had not been more than likely the group they had wiped out back then, that had killed Sheena, Walon would have swapped armour with Skirata for a sharp, short and very unsavoury little crusade.

He reframed the extration mission in his memory. Not just a job, not just another mission, but revenge and justice in one. And a new beginning. _Possibly_ a new beginning. It was still his decision and his alone. And he demanded more evidence. More reliable intel.

His sister's hand reached out from the past, putting herself between him and the count. Vau sighed. There was not really a decision, not if what he suspected was the truth. There was one easy way to find out. The question was if he really wanted to know. A question he had asked himself only days ago. A question he had even answered in the lonely cold of approaching death. Vau glanced at the place a small box was stowed away safely. And he hesitated.


	3. Hut'uun

Hut'uun

He would not have called himself a fearful man. But right now Walon Vau was afraid of a simple message. It had arrived in the morning. It was almost midnight.

Getting old and soft and indecisive. It was not a combination he had expected to ever see on himself. But then he had never really thought about getting old. It was the stretch on Kamino that had done it. Eight years straight without the chance of getting killed. It made you older than you expected.

It was easier to focus on Kamino. Eight years on that storm-battered planet cooped up in impeccably sterile cities. Eight years spent drilling discipline into children. Eight years of turning kids into commandos, into survivors. It was easier to think about that.

Small figures in blue fatigues, their tiny hands curled around blasters. Dark eyes observing carefully how to take human physiology apart, a filament at a time. Boys going down under simunition, going down from his own hand. But it was easier to think about that now. And they did not go down anymore when they started using live rounds. At least not many.

It was a lot easier to think abut that.

Mird lay curled up beside the bed, half sprawled on his back, his feet twitching now and then as he hunted in his dreams. It had not been easy for him on Kamino either. Only polished duracrete. No natural scents, nothing to hunt but aiwha bait. He was easy to sick onto the commandos. He was efficient as well. And seeing what kind of monsters awaited the commandos in the universe, he would not be their worst nightmare for long.

Vau had not considered it possible that a message could be some kind of nightmare. He gazed at the blinking screen for a while. One new message. One new. Message. Mird twitched and turned over with a yowl. Monsters were easy. All you needed was the right kit. Decisions like this were less easy to handle and much less predictable in their consequences.

He had spent the better part of the day considering possibly consequences and had filtered them down to the most likely scenarios plus the most unpleasant ones. It was not as if he was unprepared. And still he hesitated.

He had grown men; over a hundred of them, turned them into fierce soldiers and unrivalled survivors. He would not have to do a lick of raising on _that_ one. That was most likely a part of the problem. Even with an affirmative, he had no claim. _Aliit ori'shya tal'din. _And she had found her _aliit_ already.

In the end, he reasoned, it might not matter at all. Family was what you made it. And that was open to him as much as to her. At the touch of a button the message unfolded. It was crammed full with the usual legalese. He skimmed over the words.

_... with a probability of 99,8% that the subjects are related..._

Vau leant back on his heels. So he had his answer. The real question was what he would do with it now. He re-read the message and deleted it. This was his problem.


	4. Encore Une Fois

**_Author's note:_** Ties into Whispers of Wire just before the last chapter.

* * *

><p><span>Encore Une Fois<span>

There was not much left to do in the wake of Kom'rk. The Null ARC swept through the corridors like an angry rancor leaving only bleeding death and broken destruction behind. It was at the same time satisfying and annoying Walon Vau. Satisfying because he knew that _she_ would never want for better protection, annoying because it left him nothing to do. There might have been more resistance if their rapid entry had triggered the alarms and brought down the whole crew on them. But Kom'rk could be crafty even when he stormed a stronghold without much of a plan. The inhabitants were awake, yes, but alarmed? No.

They were almost in the heart of the building and had seen only occasional opposition. Vau watched with interest what an angry Null with a vibroblade and a grudge could do to sloppily donned armour. The sheer animal ferocity was quite something. It was a dangerous thing, getting a Null ARC angry. Most people didn't do it a second time, mostly because they ended up too dead to give it another shot. With the precision Kom'rk and his brothers were capable of, Vau didn't think any armoured Mandalorian would come out on top of such a fight. It didn't matter how well the gaps between the beskar were closed. Nulls would slice through that millimetre like surgeons.

They spread out, clearing the scum from corridors and rooms as they came upon it. Each had an eye out for the girl, Kom'rk's girl, Mij's patient, his _ba'ad__._ It was a strange feeling, to find that a job was suddenly personal.

Walon was not sure if he actually wanted to find her. His imagination concerning torture was very detailed; it was a side effect of knowing a lot about it. And he was an expert. Finding such expertise applied to a member of your own family – so far that had been a pleasant pastime to relieve stress, an advantage of hating the guts of your blood relatives. He had zero experience with caring for actual blood family. It was somewhat worrisome.

And yet here he was, volunteered to yet another rescue mission of his own _ba'ad. _Sisterdaughter. At least this time he actually knew why he was in for. It was probably a blessing that Sheena was not around to see what had happened to her daughter. Not your fault, he reminded himself. Tracking a flitnat, even if you knew it and were a Null, still took time and there was nothing that could have made Kom'rk work faster. _Not your fault. Just make sue she gets out alive and unbroken enough._

The only risk was that they were still carrying the contagious immunogen. Not that the _shabla hut'uune_ would profit from that in their last minutes. Vau did not know much about virulent incubation and how long the virus could in theory survive on a dead host. Not long, he hoped. And probably not fire. Not that he though any of them would survive their rapid entry except by chance. Retrieving Tera had priority, but killing did not take much time.

And Gilamar would make sure that Tera came out of this on top by giving her a shot if necessary. If possible. If there was still a sensible place to give her a shot. Walon _knew_ about torture. Mij might just be able to pour the immunogen into her blood from a bottle at any number of places.

A movement caught in the corner of his eye. His HUD confirmed the incoming. A blaster bolt caught him in the chest and Vau had to take a step backwards. _D__i'kute_. Had they not realised their opponents wore _beskar'gam_ as well? Who did Death Watch recruit these days? Weequays?

He pointed his right at the kyr'tsade's shoulder and launched a tiny missile. Blaster to the chest indeed. The other man's right arm went limp and Vau advanced, returning the fire with a steady volley, forcing the other backwards to keep upright until he hit the wall. Despite their pearl inlay, his inherited blasters worked just like their more mundane cousins. They also had no stun setting.

Walon shrugged. He pinned the left hand of his victim to the wall with a knife - knuckle plates were not optional—and held the muzzle of his blaster against the weakness of the neckseal.

"You might wonder what I intend to do next." He used the loudspeakers to make himself heard. "So do I."

Blasters couldn't shoot through beskar. The bolt was stopped short by the dome and discharged his whole force in the confines of the helmet. The air filled with the smell of ozone, burnt flesh and bllod. Walon pulled his knife from the wall as a red shape went down in a flash of blue in Gilamar's view icon. His blasters _did_ have a stun setting and he was using it well. Kom'rk's icon showed an unwelcome yellow armour he had not expected to see here and what was probably a person behind her. _Shab_. No time to lose, really. But they were about done here. Time to pick up his _ba'ad_ and leave.

Walon reached Kom'rk just as he finished dropping pieces of Isabet Reau to the ground. The girl stood in the room looking nothing like the beat kid Kal had collected years ago. Instead she looked exactly as if somebody had put Sheena through a grinder. Tatters of cloth didn't hide much of bruised and broken skin. Dried blood crusted most parts of her and indicated a thorough if messy approach to torture. Her left shoulder was a mess of blood, the collarbone broken, poking through the flesh. It had not far to go. Whiplash-thin wasn't beginning to cover it.

_Ba'ad._

Vau could see the fingers of her right curled tightly around the hilt of a knife dripping with blood. But there was no madness in her eyes this time. Instead those dark eyes burn as if she was about to take on the rest of the batch herself. The defiant pose reminded him painfully of the girl that had regularly taken up position between him and his father. A spark shot through Tera's eyes when she saw the black on black armour and she tried to smile. But the effort fell horribly short.

He nodded slightly and turned to leave again. Mij would have her patched up soon. There was not nearly enough time. She would live. Others in this place would not. Vau would make _very_ sure of that.

The pity was, again, that they had been thorough on their way in. Most bodies showed up cooling down on his HUD, even the one he had been _careful_ with. They were no good to him. One strong life sign showed up in the rooms behind Tera, Kom'rk and Mij. But he was out of bounds. By the time Walon Vau had found a living creature, he was very much annoyed at the wasted time. He wouldn't be able to take as much time now as he wanted. But he would make do.

Knives were his friends. Predictable, easy to handle and precise in their damage. The hum of the vibro blade protruding from his knuckle plate was so soft that Walon almost hummed along. He had skimmed off the upper layers of skin on the man's face and throat. Now the man was obviously screaming but there was not much of a sound. Mostly because of the partially crushed windpipe which made it rather impossible for him to utter anything above a scratching wheeze.

Knives were all very well, but sometimes a quick elbow in the throat was just as useful. He wouldn't want to worry the girl. She'd been through enough trouble for a while. Vau peeled off another strip of skin, lost in thought. There had been at least ten people in the hideout. All were dead now except for two and of those two at least one was wishing desperately to join his comrades. Walon smiled. Blood started dripping down the man's face.

It was a shame really, that the others were dead. Except that other one, but he was special and reserved for a higher purpose. The smile broadened. "You have no idea what you have done, have you?" The blade scraped over the thinning skin again, breaking it in another place. He was getting old. Some time ago he could have done this neatly like a tanner and not break the skin at all for another two layers.

Not that the man before him cared. He still tried to scream rather uselessly. Walon gave up on subtlety and pressed the blade in a soft arc against the skin on the cheeks. A gloved hand went up to the man's throat, holding his breath manually while the knife carved carefully into battered skin.

"I know this hurts," Vau murmured softly. "Trust me, I do know. And I also know that you will try to start screaming again as soon as I let go." Of course the suffocating man couldn't see Walon's eyes light up behind the tinted visor. Still his eyes widened as if he could hear it. "Yes, you will scream. But," the Mandalorian let go of the windpipe and watched the man's face pop wide as the last filaments of muscle and skin ripped under the strain of the opening lips, "I am afraid your face won't take to that kindly."

It was a pity he didn't have the time to do the job properly. Now there was a lot of blood flowing and that would weaken his victim fast. With a sigh he stabbed the vibroblade neatly into the now easily available root canals.

Gurgling, his victim went down, bleeding copiously all over the floor. Walon stepped aside a little to let the rivulets pass. He had expected some kind of mean trick even holding the other at gunpoint. It was kyr'tsad after all. But then again, he was a tall, black-armoured Mandalorain with a knife pressed against the other's throat. Life was full of disappointments.

Springing the vibro knife from his knuckle plates, Vau perforated the material around the man's belly plate and took it off with most of the guts still clinging to it. He and placed the full plate in this hands. The man dropped to the side and made a mess. Some people had no sense for tidiness. He left the man to die shaking his head. It would be too fast, all too fast.

But Mij would have had enough time to patch the girl up by now. Anger flared up in him, but there was no outlet left. He left the gurgling piece of a mess behind after carefully cleaning his blade on the man's overall.

Time to attend the presentation of the gift.


End file.
